The Pro Football Hall of Fame Inductions

The Induction classes of 2020 and 2021 for the Pro Football Hall of Fame were held over two nights this past weekend, and they made for some good television viewing. Me, I recorded the ceremonies, and then watched them later, fast forwarding through much of it and watching only those speehes that I wished to see.   I mean no disrespect to guys like Edgerin James or Drew Pearson or Steve Hutchinson, but I just didn't care to listen to what they had to say.  This also had the additional benefit of keeping my exposure to Chris Berman to an absolute minimum.

In addition to the speeches ot the incoming Steelers - Bill Cowher, Donnie Schell, Troy Polamalu, and Alan Faneca - I also wanted to see the speeches of Pitt's Jimbo Covert and Peyton Manning.

Let's get the two non-Steelers out of the way.  Enjoyed Covert's speech.  Loved all his references to Pitt and his teammates and coaches there, although I never would have recognized Jackie Sherrill, and I loved that Jimbo has retained that Pittsburgh accent!

As for Manning, well, his speech was everything you would expect from Payton Manning.  Smart and funny, but mostly smart and a ringing endorsement for football.  For all of its problems, we all love to watch it, and those men on stage sure loved to play it and coach it.  It was constant theme through all of the speeches.   On PTI tonight, Tony Kornheiser made the statement that Peyton Manning should one day be the Commissioner of the NFL.  Not sure if it's a job he wants, but he would probably be perfect for it.

Now for the Steelers.

Certainly, the most popular of the speeches - and how about the way those Terrible Towels took over Canton those two nights? - was Polamalu's.   If there remains any rancor between him and the Steelers organization, as has been reported, it was certainly not evident during that speech.

However, perhaps the best speech from all of the Steelers inductees came from Alan Faneca.  It was humble and grateful, and fully expressed the emotions of every inductee those two nights.  There is no way that I could capture the essence of it here, but it is surely out there in cyberspace for you to see, and I would recommend highly that you do so.

And, of course, the Coach was the Coach.  He lives in New York now and is a TV star  and a Hall of Famer, but Bill Cowher has never left Crafton.   A great speech, accent and all!

As for the guy that waited the longest, how could you not have loved Donnie Shell and his daughter?  Another great speech.

Unfortunately, I missed whatever was doen to commemorate the late Bill Nunn's induction.  I will need to go back over the recording in an effort to find that one.

One thing that each of the four Steelers induction speeches had in common, two things actually, were the overriding gratitude and respect that they had for Dan and Art Rooney, and how special it was to play and coach as a part of "Steelers Nation."

Peyton and Archie

Father and Son Hall of Famers

Marilyn and I will be in Canton later this month as part of an overnight getaway with some friends, and it is in our plans to drop by the Hall of Fame - it has been many years since we've been there - and check out the new residents of the "Steelers Wing" there.  Very much looking forward to it.

To Absent Friends - Herb Adderly

Herb Adderly

1939 - 2020

Running with one of his 

48 career interceptions

Pro Football Hall of Fame member Herb Adderly died today at the age of 81.   Adderly played for 12 seasons in the NFL, nine of them with one of the more glamorous and important teams in League history, the Lombardi-era Green Bay Packers.   He was member of the first two Super Bowl winning teams (before it was known as the "Super Bowl"), and he played in two more Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys.   In all, Herb Adderly played on three Super Bowl winning teams.

To be honest, when I saw the news of Adderly's death, I pondered as to whether or not to write about it here, but I figured that as a part of Lombardi's Packers, he deserved such recognition.  

So, RIP Herb Adderly.

However, in researching some facts and figures for Adderly, I was led down an Internet rabbit hole.  How many of those Packers are enshrined in the Hall of Fame?  The answer is thirteen, and here they are, alphabetically:

Herb Adderly

Willie Davis

Forrest Gregg

Paul Hornung

Henry Jordan

Jerry Kramer

Vince Lombardi

Ray Nitschke

Jim Ringo

Dave Robinson

Bart Starr

Jim Taylor

Willie Wood

Compiling that list led me down yet another Internet rabbit hole.  How many 1970's Super Steelers-era are in the Hall of Fame?  The answer is also thirteen:

Mel Blount

Terry Bradshaw

Joe Greene

Jack Ham

Franco Harris

Jack Lambert

Chuck Noll

Art Rooney

Dan Rooney

Donnie Shell

John Stallworth

Lynn Swann

Mike Webster

Of course, Art Rooney was in the HOF long before the 1970's, but I'm putting him on the list anyway.  

Interesting stuff.

The 1974 NFL Draft

In doing some research on Gale Sayers last week, I had reason to take a look at the 1970 NFL Draft, and I noted that of 442 players selected in that  Draft, only two of them Terry Bradshaw and Mel Blount, had found their way into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  It seemed like a low number to me, so I wondered if that was an anomaly or the norm, and that caused me to take a look at the 1974 NFL Draft.

Steelers fans remember this draft fondly, and it is considered by many to be the single best draft class for ANY team EVER.  We all know the players:

Lynn Swann (1st Rd / 21st overall)

Jack Lambert (2nd / 46th)

John Stallworth (4th / 82nd)

Mike Webster (5th / 125th)

The team's first four picks (they didn't have a pick in the third round), four Super Bowl champions, four Hall of Famers.  And of course, just to put the icing on the cake, the Steelers signed Donnie Shell as an undrafted free agent, and he will be the fifth 1974 Steelers rookie who will enter the Hall of Fame later this year.

Okay, that's four draftees plus one free agent in the HOF just for one team, but surely there must have been others from that draft class whose busts now sit in Canton, right?  How many....two, three, five?

Well, thus far, only one other 1974 draftee has made it into the Hall.  I won't make you guess....

It is Dave Casper, tight end from Notre Dame, drafted by the Oakland Raiders in the second round with the 45th overall pick, right ahead of Lambert.  Fittingly, he was a guy who gave the Steelers fits over the many years of those classic Steelers-Raiders battles.

A lot more research needs to be done to state whether two HOF'ers per class is a low number or if five is a high number, but at this point, I am not inclined to dig any further into the issue, which is not to say that I won't do so at some point.  It's a fun little exercise.

Some other tidbits from that Class of '74....

• No other player drafted by the Steelers that year had any great impact, but what do you want after the first four picks?
• In the 13th round the Steelers selected a quarterback, Frank Kolch of Eastern Michigan.  See what I mean about no impact players after the first four guys?
• The Steelers did sign another free agent who would go on to make significant contributions to Super Bowl winning teams, tight end Randy Grossman of Temple. 
• The overall Number One pick in the draft that year was Ed "Too Tall" Jones, DE, Tennessee State, picked by the Dallas Cowboys.  Pretty good player.
• Amazingly, no quarterbacks were selected until the third round when Dallas took Arizona State's Danny White with the first pick in that round (53rd overall).  White became an all-pro with the Cowboys, but he was really the only QB who had an NFL career of any consequence.  A total of 17 other QB's were drafted that year, including Kolch by the Steelers.  You might recognize a few of the names, but, as I said, none had a significant career in the NFL.
• Penn State had eight players drafted, including Heisman Trophy winner John Cappelletti (1st/11th).  He was not, however, the first Nittany Lion selected.  That was LB Ed O'Neill, the 8th overall pick, selected by the Detroit Lions.
• Pitt had only three players drafted, the first one being LB Rod Kirby (11th/278th), selected by the Bills.  Two rounds and 98 picks later, the third and final Panther was selected, and he did become a player and coach of consequence, OL Dave Wannstedt (15th/376th), taken by the Packers.

Donnie Shell

Word comes down this morning that former Steelers safety Donnie Shell will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame this year as part of the Hall's special "Centennial Class."

Shell played fourteen seasons, all with the Steelers, and had 51 interceptions.  He was a member of all four of the Steelers' 1970's Super Bowl champion teams.  He becomes the fifth member of the Steel Curtain defense to enter the Hall (Joe Greene, Jack Ham, Jack Lambert, and Mel Blount are the others) and the fifth member of the Steelers' 1974 rookie class to go into the Hall.  Draftees Lynn Swann, Lambert, John Stallworth, and Mike Webster are the others.  Shell was signed as an undrafted free agent.

It's always fun to see one of the members of those great teams being honored, and to once again be reminded of how truly great those teams of that era were.

Congratulations, Donnie Shell!

Bill Cowher

It was big news this weekend when the announcement was made that former Steelers head coach Bill Cowher was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  I was always a big fan of Cowher's when he was here with the Steelers, and I am certainly happy that he has reached this pinnacle.

Rather than list all of his accomplishments that led him to this point, if you are interested enough to be reading this you already know what they are, I will instead turn this one over to my pal Tim Baker, who posted this story on Facebook on Saturday night when the Cowher news became public.  It's a pretty good one.  Take it away, Tim.....

Congratulations Coach Kaahr!!! I have a story, of course.

In my sophomore year, I was a backup O-lineman just trying to figure out how to avoid getting killed every week. And on a sunny Saturday afternoon at Carlynton HS, the guy I was backing up went down. Coach Mac called my name and in I went.

I spent the rest of the afternoon getting my en-tire ass kicked all over the field. I was too dumb to quit so I kept getting smacked around. They guy doing the smacking? Bill Cowher! 

I learned a valuable lesson that day. That I wasn't going to be able earn a living with my athletic prowess and I had better hit the books. Thanks for that Coach!!!!

I will conclude with some photos of the Coach that typify him and his time with the Steelers.  I think that I will need to be making a trip to Canton in the Fall just to see how that famous jaw is depicted on Cowher's bronze bust.

Congratulations, Coach!!

Bettis and Ben, and Buckner and Branca

In his Sunday column yesterday, John Mehno wrote about the now infamous call made by Seattle Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll that, it is fair to say, probably cost Seattle their second consecutive Super Bowl victory.  He said, not without merit, that this play call will most likely earn Carroll a spot alongside Bill Buckner and Ralph Branca, men who are known mainly for one specific misplay that has overshadowed two pretty nice career bodies of work.  (I don't have to recount those two instances, do I?)

Anyway, that got me to thinking about something else that took place last weekend, and which I have previously commented upon, the election of Jerome Bettis to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  What Steelers fan does not remember the play in the Playoff game against the Colts following the 2005 season where Jerome fumbled the ball on the goal line, and were it not for this play...

...a certain Steelers win, which led a few weeks later to a Super Bowl victory, would have turned into a loss that would have been every bit as ignominious as the Pirates-Braves 1992 NLCS Game 7 in the annals of Pittsburgh sports history.

If Ben Roethlisberger doesn't make that shoe top tackle of Nick Harper, Jerome Bettis would  have become the Pittsburgh version of Bill Buckner, and I am guessing he would not be the Beloved Bus among the denizens of Steelers Nation that he is today, and I am also guessing that he would not be going into the Hall of Fame, either.  That would not be fair or right or just, but that's how it would be, I believe.

I am thinking that Jerome ought to give serious consideration to having Ben Roethlisberger be his Presenter at his HOF Induction this summer.

Hail to The Bus!!

Congratulations to former Pittsburgh Steeler Jerome Bettis upon his election yesterday to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  No one can argue (although some no doubt will), I believe, that he is a most worthy addition to the Hall of Fame in Canton.

I won't list all the stats and and accomplishments.  You can find those easily enough elsewhere.  I saw him play, and that is all I need to know about him.

The picture above, of Jerome scoring a touchdown while flattening Brian Urlacher in the snow at Heinz Field as the Steelers began their Super Bowl run in 2005 is the play that most typifies Jerome Bettis as a football player, and it is how I will always remember him.

Well done, Jerome Bettis.

An Observation on Halls of Fame Electors

Sometime this afternoon, the results of the balloting for the Baseball Hall of Fame will be announced, and in a few weeks, the Pro Football Hall of Fame will also elect new members.

Coupled with these announcements will be some serious bloviating by the sportswriters who vote on these things.  It has started already with the self-important gasbag from MLB.com who has already announced why he did not vote for Greg Maddux.

The Cardinals of the Catholic Church who elect a Pope do not take themselves as serious as do Buster Olney, Peter Gammons, Peter King and others of their ilk.